(This article was originally written for my Patreon in early April. But, I mean, it’s not like anything has exactly changed since then…) The 2019-20 NHL regular season is apparently finished, which means there's plenty of time to focus on the most important thing going on in the world right now: voting for the NHL Awards. These conversations have been especially contentious this year because so many of the races are close. Most are voted for by the media, and PHWA members have made their picks pretty clear - and I think a lot of those picks are wrong.
I stumbled across you today because your Drew Doughty post came up in my newsfeed. I wrote today (unfortunately not for the internet) about Sean Walker and Corsi. After doing team and zone adjustments I have him 18th best in the NHL. The context missing is quality of opposition. You wrote about the same thing and concluded the opposite.
I thought I would give a look at what else you write and it worse than I thought. You seem to want to give out the Calder Trophy for puck possession numbers alone (Corsi, Fenwick and their adjustments). While I agree that Adam Fox should come out on tip of the 2019/20 rookies with the numbers you chose to look at, he iisn't the best rookie. Again the first argument I would give is quality of opposition. The Rangers protected Fox for the first 40 games or so until they began to set him free against tough opposition. Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar played against tough opposition all season.
However the bigger argument I would give is that puck possession is only part of playing hockey well. In most cases point totals do a better job of picking the best players in the league than Corsi does. Makar and Hughes lead in points by a significant enough margin (while playing defence) that they should be the only players seriously considered for the Calder.
I support Makar for Calder. It is close and I can understand why one would support Hughes. I think it is a stretch to argue anything else. Naturally that is what you do and you do it by blindly following certain numbers and rejecting everything else (in this case point totals and presumably your own eyes if you watch them play).
You are learning about analytics and that is good, but you need to understand what they show and what they do not show.
Quinn Hughes has been playing on a shutdown pairing with Tanev all season. Obviously his xGA/60 will not be as good. The Canucks defense sucks. At 5v5, the Canucks are -3 (While the Avalanche are +47). And when you play on a shutdown pairing, like Hughes, you will get faced against tougher opposition. It is not an easy to stop a team’s first and second line from generating high danger scoring chances as compared to a team’s third or fourth line. Also Makar’s xGA/60 was just 0.03 more. That is within the margin of error. Also, Hughes has also been the best Canucks defensemen at preventing neutral zone breakouts on 5v5. He has the best xGAR for EVD among all Canucks defensemen. Quinn Hughes defensive game is a lot more stronger than you have presented.
And you should have at least looked at other variables like their Corsi/Fenwick relative to their team, their puck transitioning stats (Hughes leads all defensemen in the league), their 5v5 goal differential on/off the ice and more. All of these stats are publicly available. If you really want to have an extensive look at the numbers to determine the Calder Trophy, this isn’t it. I can do a far better job myself
I stumbled across you today because your Drew Doughty post came up in my newsfeed. I wrote today (unfortunately not for the internet) about Sean Walker and Corsi. After doing team and zone adjustments I have him 18th best in the NHL. The context missing is quality of opposition. You wrote about the same thing and concluded the opposite.
I thought I would give a look at what else you write and it worse than I thought. You seem to want to give out the Calder Trophy for puck possession numbers alone (Corsi, Fenwick and their adjustments). While I agree that Adam Fox should come out on tip of the 2019/20 rookies with the numbers you chose to look at, he iisn't the best rookie. Again the first argument I would give is quality of opposition. The Rangers protected Fox for the first 40 games or so until they began to set him free against tough opposition. Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar played against tough opposition all season.
However the bigger argument I would give is that puck possession is only part of playing hockey well. In most cases point totals do a better job of picking the best players in the league than Corsi does. Makar and Hughes lead in points by a significant enough margin (while playing defence) that they should be the only players seriously considered for the Calder.
I support Makar for Calder. It is close and I can understand why one would support Hughes. I think it is a stretch to argue anything else. Naturally that is what you do and you do it by blindly following certain numbers and rejecting everything else (in this case point totals and presumably your own eyes if you watch them play).
You are learning about analytics and that is good, but you need to understand what they show and what they do not show.
Quinn Hughes has been playing on a shutdown pairing with Tanev all season. Obviously his xGA/60 will not be as good. The Canucks defense sucks. At 5v5, the Canucks are -3 (While the Avalanche are +47). And when you play on a shutdown pairing, like Hughes, you will get faced against tougher opposition. It is not an easy to stop a team’s first and second line from generating high danger scoring chances as compared to a team’s third or fourth line. Also Makar’s xGA/60 was just 0.03 more. That is within the margin of error. Also, Hughes has also been the best Canucks defensemen at preventing neutral zone breakouts on 5v5. He has the best xGAR for EVD among all Canucks defensemen. Quinn Hughes defensive game is a lot more stronger than you have presented.
And you should have at least looked at other variables like their Corsi/Fenwick relative to their team, their puck transitioning stats (Hughes leads all defensemen in the league), their 5v5 goal differential on/off the ice and more. All of these stats are publicly available. If you really want to have an extensive look at the numbers to determine the Calder Trophy, this isn’t it. I can do a far better job myself